Assisted suicide and the burden and blessing of human choice

A reflection on Sunday's readings from the Rev. Terrance Klein

It rsquo s said to be Pope Francis rsquo favorite Church document nbsp In his lifetime of ministry his most cited Back in 1975 in Evangelii Nuntiandi Proclaiming the Gospel Pope Paul VI insisted thatthe presentation of the Gospel message is not an optional contribution for the Church It is

We called them ldquo Lightning Bugs rdquo though I think we might also have said ldquo Fireflies rdquo Hard to remember It rsquo s been half a century since I went hunting for them They rsquo d appear this time of the year flickering above the grass of the lawn as the last light of a long

Ireland in the 1980s a young Father Odran Yates can rsquo t contain the respect which his clerical collar garners Boarding a train walking through all of its cars he resigns himself to standing near the door ldquo Anthony rdquo said a middle-age woman with an old-fashioned beehive hairdo who

Two hundred years ago this week the Duke of Wellington rsquo s dispatch was terse not triumphal T he enemy made a desperate effort with cavalry and infantry supported by the fire of artillery to force our left centre near the farm of La Haye Sainte which after a severe contest was defeated

At the order ldquo Let the execution begin rdquo a syringe full of midazolam was injected into Clayton Lockett rsquo s groin but the IV dislodged and the sedative was pumped into the prisoner rsquo s tissue instead of his vein Lockett remained alert He licked his lips and blinked The execut

My nephew has a tattoo Perhaps more than one but as I pause to picture I can clearly remember only the one It rsquo s a simple gothic cross running the length of his right bicep Although we live a little less distant than a two-hour car drive we dwell in different worlds He rsquo s just un

We are what we remember granted that memory is deep and wide and that sometimes who we are even who we rsquo ve been may yet surprise us Yet that which is completely forgotten if such be possible would be as though it had never occurred To be human is ever to reclaim one rsquo s past To live

As he saw it he didn rsquo t just make it He was history ldquo I am the revolution rdquo That was the explanation Napoleon Bonaparte offered in 1804 when he announced that he would be crowned Emperor of the young French republic As Bonaparte saw it stability would never come to France as lo